You're going to fall
by Fantastic Fans1
Summary: Effie Tryaln and Draco Malfoy are long time childhood friends. But when they go to Hogwarts it becomes harder and harder for Draco to suppress his feelings and for Effie to suppress her past. Especially when Effie becomes friends with Draco's nemisis, Harry Potter. Reviews please! P.S. I do not own Harry Potter
1. Chapter 1

It was the night of 31 august, Diagon Alley was still and quiet, witch was a change from the atmosphere of excitement that the day had brought. With all the last minute shopping to get ready for the start of the school year the streets had been filled from crowds of hyped up first years and nervous jumpy parents to blasé seventh years who had done this to many times to get excited about it anymore.

But now, when it was nearly midnight, the streets where completely empty with not even a stray cat to disturb the peacefulness.

But aloney in a room on the second floor of the leaky cauldron, Effie Tyaln, a first year due at Hogwarts the next day, wasn't sleeping. She was on her bed, legs folded against her, her chin on her knees. Her fingers where griping the sheets as she rocked back and froth.

" _It's going to be fine Eff,_ she muttered under her breath, _you're going to be fine. This is Hogwarts, Hogwarts! You've been looking forward to Hogwarts since forever! And you won't be alone: Drac will be there!"_

Just thinking about Draco made her feel better. She and him had been friends ever since she had moved from France when she was eight. Best friends, the ones that had their backs forever. They had been neighbors before she moved again, before everything had changed. That tough made her breath hitch in her throat again and her fingers griped the sheets tighter.

To distract herself, she pictured the first time she had seen him, Draco: at the small lake (more of a pond really) that separated her house and his. Effie had found it a few days after having arrived, when she had been exploring.

The lake was round and surrounded by tall oak tree who's branches hanged over the water and reeds grew in patches in it. There was also a small wooden doc that really did not look solid at all. Effie, being the reckless person she was, advanced on the wooden plank, testing to see if it held.

" _You're going to fall."_

A voice marked with a light English accent sneered. Effie spun around, nearly losing her balance. In front of her, a boy of about her age, with the blondes hair she had ever seen and cold ice grey eyes was staring at her.

" _Who are you!?_ Effie asked in an angry tone, _You nearly made me fall!_

The boy raised one eyebrow, looking half surprised, half bemused.

" _I'm Draco, Draco Malfoy."_

He looked at her, obviously waiting for some kind of reaction. She just stared at him blankly.

" _Pureblood family for generations, my father has a very important place at the ministry. I'm your neighbor. I live in Malfoy manor."_

It was Effie's turn to raise an eyebrow.

" _Am I supposed to bow down or something?"_ She asked him sarcastically.

Draco didn't seem to know quite what to say. All his life telling people who he was had succeed some kind of reaction, some kind of fear and therefor, respect. And now here was this girl with the long brown hair and big blue eyes, who clearly didn't give half a damn about his name and the power attached to it.

" _Well, who are you?!"_ He asked seemingly flustered.

" _Effie Tyaln_ , she looked at him straight in the eye and Draco felt something move in his stomach, _I just moved here from France."_

She turned away from him and moved forward on the doc once more. After a few steps she turned back and tossed him a smile.

" _Coming?"_

In that moment Draco knew he was a goner. It was like something had moved into place inside him. He followed her on the small doc, and he knew that in that moment he would have followed her anywhere. He stopped, though, when the board creaked menacingly.

" _Uh, I don't think this is a good idea, Effie."_ He said, fear evident in his voice.

Effie sighed. _"Okay, fine, lets go back…_ She said turning around, then stopped. _Wait Drac, come help me, I'm stuck!_

Draco's stomach twisted. He didn't know if it was from fear that the doc would crack or the way her voice had sounded when she called him Drac. No one had ever called him that. He sighed and quickly took a few steps closing the distance between them. But before he could grab her arm and pull her out, she had grabbed his and pushed him in the lake.

The cold water hit him like a bullet. It iced him gown to the bone. He moved his frozen arms, pushing against the water, and his head broke the surface of the lake. He kicked his legs furiously to stay at the surface as he gasped for breath.

The first sound that registered was Effie's laughter. He turned to the doc and saw Effie doubled over holding her sides. She tried to calm down but when she saw his face she lost it all over again.

" _I'm so sorry….Your face…I'm sorry, is it cold?"_

" _Yes"_ Was all Draco answered. Effie straightened up, her laughter stopping when she saw he wasn't laughing with her. She held out her hand to him.

" _Here, I'll help you up."_

Draco smirked inwardly. He grabbed her hand and felt a shiver go up his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Before she could react he yanked on her hand, pulling her into the lac with him.

" _What the?"_ Effie started before hitting the water hard, sending Draco in a fit of laughter himself. Effie surfaced a few seconds latter.

" _Malfoy!"_ She cried, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him back in the water, but she was laughing.

Draco decided that her laugh was the prettiest sound in the world.

" _You started it!_ He laughed with her, _What was I supposed to do, you where asking for it after all!"_

She just smiled. And that's how it had all begun.

Effie opened her eyes , a small smile played on her lips. She relaxed her grip on the sheets and stopped rocking back and troth. She laid back down on her bed and stared at the celling. She was going to _Hogwarts_ with Draco. Everyone and everything else didn't. Her mother, her past they could all be dammed!

 _I wonder what house I'll be in_ was her last tough before she finally drifted of to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2, the train

Effie had no problem with being alone: she had had more of an independent nature since she was young. She would always find a way to get what she wanted without help from others. And in the last year she had used that quality more than ever, so it wasn't a problem for Effie to navigate the crowded King's Cross Station.

Draco had said he would meet her on platform 9 ¾ and after seeing a family of red haired children and a brown haired boy with an owl all disappear through the barrier it didn't take her long to understand how to get there.

As she emerged on the other side, she felt a blast of heat from the masse of bodies and spluttering engine of the Hogwarts Express hit her.

The platform was filled with parents and students, some of them already wearing their Hogwarts uniforms.

Effie wrinkled her nose in disgust: those robes really were awful. She, for one, had always preferred muggle clothes to wizard robes: there was so many different outfits and styles! In the wizarding world everybody looked the same.

She turned her head form side to side looking for the only familiar face she knew. Effie saw him almost at once: how could you miss the shock of white blond hair? A smile grew on her lips as she watched him.

God, had she missed him in the last year.

Before, when they were still neighbors, they saw each other almost every day. They would hang out at the lake for hours at a time or when they were hungry, they would go down to her house and her dad would make them a fest... It was so simple, so easy. Effie had really believed that it would be like that forever. Ironic, really, that she thought that right before everything _changed_ forever.

Effie shock her head a little to clear it, grabbed her trolley and made her way through the crowd to the Malfoys.

Draco saw her when she was about half way to him. His bored mask brock into a huge grin as he watched her battling with her trolley to make her way thro the crowd.

Before he had time to react, Effie had closed the distance between them, rapping her arms around his neck and enveloping him in bear hug. She smelt like roses and smoke, a sent so familiar, instantly brought back memories flooded his mind.

Draco could fell Crabe and Goyle's eyes on him along with the eyes of half of the slytherins on the platform: a Malfoy hugging a girl dressed in muggle clothes that nobody could recall seeing before was quite an unusual event.

Effie let him go and started babbling:

" _I'm so excited! Did you already look at your books? History of magic looks fascinating! God, I've missed you,Drac. Can you imagine what life was like before the Werewolf code of conduct in 1637?"_

Draco, who had no idea what the werewolf code of conduct was and had not read a single page of his school books, looked at her with a blank look on his face. He was about to ask her why she had bothered doing research when his mother interrupted:

" _Well, well, well, isn't this a young Tryln? Imagine that._ Narcissa said in a sickly sweet voice while looking down at Effie's muggle clothes in disgust. _We really did think that we had seen the last of you when we fond your abandoned house… How is your lovely mother doing?"_

Effie tensed but held the woman's cold gaze.

" _Fine, thank you"_ She answered, mimicking Narcissa's sweet sarcastic voice and plastering a fake smile on her lips.

Even though Draco and Effie were friends, their family's had never gotten along. Effie's family were French purebloods that had existed for century's witch, technically, should have made them equals in the malfoys eyes if they hadn't been "blood traitors" who believed that pureblood superiority was long since outdated and that muggles and wizard were and should be treated as equals.

The only reason Draco was allowed to see Effie was that the name Tryln, despite their blood traitor status, still meant something in the pureblood community, therefore it was acceptable and even positive for a Malfoy if he was on good terms with a Tryln.

That was also the reason that Mr and Ms. Malfoy were on fake good terms with Effie's parents even thought they both hated etch other.

All this was, of course, before the name had lost all it's glory.

After a few awkward minutes where Effie stood on the side and watched Draco make his farewells to his parents while his eyes darted repeatedly to where Effie stood, his already famous smirk flashing on his lips, they finally mounted the train.

Effie walked in the narrow alley between the compartments as Draco followed. Just as he was getting a lot of greetings and scared glances, Effie was getting a lot of curious looks and staring. She had that kind of effect on people.

It was like she constantly glowed, like she had this aura of invisible light around her that mesmerized you and made you unable to look away. Draco couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was she moved, like she made one with the air around her, or the way she looked everybody right in the eye.

Those little things were the things that made you unable to forget her name or what color her eyes were even if you had only met her once.

Draco felt pride and smugness engulf him: she was _his_ friend, not theirs. For now, at least until she meet someone else, she belonged to _him._

They found a compartment with a boy named Blaise Zabini whom Draco had already meet and rather liked.

" _Malfoy"_

" _Zabini,_ Draco responded, raising an eyebrow with his smug smirk still on his face, _this is Crabbe and Goyle,_ he said, with a wave of his hand, indicating both of them. _And this is-"_

He was cut of as Effie took a step forward and stuck out her hand to Blaise.

" _I'm Effie, Effie Tryln."_

Blaise nodded and shock her hand, before they all settled down into their seats. Quickly starting an animated conversation about quidditch. Draco and Blaise were experts and Effie, even thought she new nothing of the past seasons, was equally enthusiastic.

Draco wasn't sure for how long that lasted. He was in a pure happy bliss.

It was amazing too, after the sudden and almost total isolation of the last year, be able to look up and see her eyes staring back at him, to have an actual conversation and make her laugh again, to hear his favorite sound again.

So, when a blubbering boy introducing himself as Neville Longbottom, came to interrupt the epic story about Pepperup potion Draco had been telling, because he had lost his, poor, worthless toad, Draco didn't bother hiding his disgust. He was a Malfoy after all, and Malfoys didn't do favors to people. People did favors to them.

" _Did you think I would care?_ He asked scornfully, _Do I look like someone that would ever hold a toad? Go waste someone else's time, you little twit."_

The boy's face had gone red and he had started babbling nonsense again. Draco turned to Effie with a smirk, expecting, like an idiot, to see the same appreciative look on her face then on Blaise's. But her face was cold and hard with only a slight flush of red on her cheeks and her eyes were burning with outrage.

" _I'll help you look for your toad Neville._ She said angrily, standing up, _See I don't want you to think I'm a idiot who still believes in the rules of social class exist and is the main reason why evolution is so slow. It's not in my life goals to be so painfully pathetic and close-minded."_

She finished, looking at Malfoy before grabbing a even more flustered Neville by the arm and leading him away.

Draco felt anger rise in him.

That was not how it should have happened, they weren't supposed to have already fought, they weren't even at Hogwarts yet!

He had been stupid to have said that in front of her, as if she would have been impressed! He knew how much she absolutely hated so-called pureblood superiority. She hated any kind of superiority really: man's supposed superiority to women (she was one hell of a feminist) or wizard's superiority to muggles (she was part of the few wizards who believed that wizards should inform muggles of there existence).

And she was very passionate about everything she believed in. Strong-willed was definitely a mane characteristic for her.

Draco leaned deeper into his chair and sighed, looking out of the window as thousands of Effie's other characteristics flooded his mind.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the train, Effie was joining forces on the toad hunt with a girl with bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth, who had enthusiastically introduced herself as Hermione Granger. And after only a few minutes they were both passionately discussing what life must have been like before the Werewolf code of conduct in 1637.


End file.
